agklocke's Full Review: Jack Gantos - Hole In My Life
He was inmate number 74233-101. The year was 1972. And he was still, by all rights, just a kid.
Author Jack Gantos immediately opens his newest book with candid honesty about his past. And what's interesting about Hole in My Life is that it isn't just one story. Gantos takes on both the task of sharing his troubled past along with explaining how he found the writer within, the writer who had longed to come out for so long.
In Hole in My Life, Gantos takes the reader through his last year of high school and all the choices he made to finish, including living in a dank hotel on his own. He writes openly about his desire to author something moving and his lack of ability to do so. Much like many writers, he seems able to fantasize about what he wants to write much better than he actually writes. Each time he puts pen to paper, he is unsatisfied with the results, and so continues to dream up other things that would make him a better writer.
One of Gantos's greatest desires is to get into college, into a good writing program. And it is this desire that leads him to the decisions he makes that land him in prison. We've all made reckless decisions as young people, and many times, those reckless decisions lead to severe consequences. Gantos's decisions led him to federal prison where, despite the horrors he witnessed, he was able to use his creative mind to keep himself safe, physically and mentally. And it is within the walls of his small but private cell that he finally finds the writer he was trying to bring out.
All in all, this is a good read. It starts a little slow, perhaps spending a little too long setting it all up, but quickly grabs the reader and holds on until the tale ends, 200 pages later. Gantos is, however, a little heavy on the clichés. There are many, which can be a little distracting. But it doesn't take away from the book as a whole.
Hole in My Life has been listed in various places as a book for juveniles, and while a good bit of it would be a nice lesson, I found when finished that I wouldn't let my children read it until they were much older. My own 13-year-old would have numerous questions that are just too far above his level for him to need to know about right now. I would recommend it only for those perhaps 17 and older. Amazon.com lists it as Young Adult.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.